Three weeks after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority erected a 150-foot high cell tower next to a playground and housing for low-income Tarrytown residents, the regional transit agency is considering reversing its move.

It comes as Tarrytown residents and a range of elected officials — including U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins and state Assemblyman Tom Abinanti — have called on the agency to find a more appropriate location for the MTA Police Department’s emergency communication system.

"I can confirm we are open to looking at alternatives," said MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan.

One suggestion is to crown with antennas one of the 419-foot high towers on the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. Another would plant the monopole at the state police complex under construction where the bridge meets the land in Tarrytown. Officials are also considering a wooded site by a water tower in the south end of Tarrytown.

Buy Photo

The New York State Police Troop T headquarters building is under construction in Tarrytown, next to the entrance to the Gov. Mario Cuomo Bridge Oct. 5, 2018.(Photo11: Peter Carr/The Journal News)

Tax Watch broke the story on Sept. 20, five days after the cell tower arose, just 30 feet from the playground at the Franklin Courts public-housing complex, and within 150 feet of 14 apartments there.

The MTA is exempt from local zoning, which would prohibit a private company from erecting a tower by recreational facilities or homes that were within the tower’s 150-foot “fall zone.”

To fully air the issue, Tax Watch will convene at Town Hall meeting at 7 pm, at Tarrytown Village Hall on Tuesday. In addition to hearing from Tarrytown residents, panelists will include Tarrytown Mayor Drew Fixell and state legislators who represent Tarrytown: Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, the New York State Senate’s Democratic leader, and Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, D-Mount Pleasant.

The MTA has partnered on the communications system with the New York State Police and the state’s Department of Homeland Security. By Saturday, neither the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo nor the MTA had agreed to participate in the Town Hall meeting.

There's movement on finding a new site. State Police spokesman Beau Duffy on Friday said the department and the state Thruway Authority would consider an MTA proposal to put a tower at the new police complex by the bridge — if the transit agency were to pitch such a plan.

Buy Photo

The Cuomo administration has partnered with the MTA on the communications network, but had no input into where the tower was sited.(Photo11: File photo/The Journal News)

Cuomo’s office told Tax Watch last week it had no input into siting the cell tower by the Tarrytown playground. Cuomo relied on the “career public safety officials” at the MTA Police, State Police and Homeland Security to decide where to put the tower, said spokesman Peter Ajemian.

Spokesmen for the State Police and Homeland Security told Tax Watch they were involved in operational issues but had nothing to do with siting the tower so close the public housing complex.

“It’s hard to believe that this project went through a review at all those levels and they still believed it was a good idea to put it there,” said Fixell. “This isn’t a debate over the effects of radiation from wireless towers. It’s about the tower being 30 feet from a playground. Maybe they thought we wouldn’t notice.”

The MTA cell tower was all the buzz on Tarrytown's Broadway and Main Street on Wednesday night when Tax Watch stopped by several shops and eateries with flyers for the Town Hall meeting. We found there's lingering resentment here, too, from Cuomo’s power-play at the end of the 2017 legislature session when the Legislature voted to name the bridge for his father and strip Tappan Zee from its name.

Compounding the issue were revelations that the MTA would rent space on the tower to wireless providersthat could not have put up a tower themselves because they’d have to comply with local zoning. A private tower would be subject to property taxes, like one in Ossining that produces $25,000 a year in tax revenue.

The tax-exempt MTA tower would provide tax breaks to the wireless industry.

Wanda Hughes-Greene, who lives in a Grove Street apartment building with a view of the monopole, wants it to come down.

“If they can move the tower, they need to move it,” said Hughes-Greene. “I want my view back.”

County Executive George Latimer said it was time for the MTA to adopt a good-neighbor policy like the one he has instituted, with the county consulting with local communities, even though zoning laws do not require it.

"You don’t do it without getting feedback," he said. "You need dialogue. Even if the MTA has the power to do it on their own, they should voluntarily seek input. That would be the right way to go."

MTA board member Veronica Vanterpool said the agency needs to do more outreach.

"I would hope that the community would have had an opportunity to measure the public benefits of this project against potential environmental and health impacts," said Vanterpool, a Westchester transportation consultant.

Fellow MTA Board member David Jones, president of Community Services Society in Manhattan, was troubled by its location, said spokesman Jeff Maclin.

"He's concerned with any scenario where a cell tower comes up in close proximity to a playground and residential space," he said.

MTA's lack of community outreach

Except for notifying the village administrator of its plan, and submitting sketches with minimal detail about the tower’s surroundings, the agency did no community outreach in Tarrrytown. The MTA never met with Tarrytown residents to explain that regional security concerns required it to put the cell tower next to the playground, and in the view-scape of hundreds of residents who live on the hillside above the tower, with what used to be their unimpeded Hudson River views.

None of the drawings that the MTA shared with village officials indicated that the tower was 30 feet from the Franklin Courts playground.

On one page, there’s an arrow pointing to the cell tower site, and a street called “Franklin CT” on the other side the fence. But there is no arrow to the playground or nearby apartments.

Another page shows the tower right up against the fence separating MTA land from the public housing complex. But it depicts neither the playground directly on the other side or the fence nor does it indicate that the square structures by the fence are apartments for Tarrytown residents.

Fixell said he was encouraged that the MTA was open to looking for an alternative site. Now comes the hard part: finding a place to move it.

“They said they were taking us seriously,” said Fixell. “That remains to be seen.”